I FOUND ANOTHER quiet moment, but this time I needed more privacy than anything the local police station could offer, because the person I most wanted to avoid eavesdropping had super-duper hearing. I could have asked Newman for the use of his car again, but the woods were right there, and I was feeling strangely claustrophobic. I needed a breath of fresh air, literally. I took the time to put on the tac vest. It was technically a plate carrier, but since I was police and not military, I’d probably never put a plate in it, so I just called it a tac vest. I didn’t like the feel of the vest, and I’d spent some time in the gym trying to fight in it, because it restricted my movement, but it would stop most bullets and the MOLLE straps all over it were awesome for carrying extra gear. I had the 9mm on the chest holster, which was great for drawing if I was sitting in a car, but it was my secondary handgun once the full battle rattle went on. The .45 in its drop thigh holster was the main handgun now, sitting snug to my leg and out of the way of the tightness of the vest. My AR-15 hung on a tactical sling strap so that I could push it behind me to get it out of the way, or let it swing forward to be snugged to my shoulder and used. I’d carried the AR in my hands as I walked through the woods so it wouldn’t get caught on anything, but once I stopped moving, I slid it behind me. I had extra ammo in the pockets of my tac pants, like cargo pants but tougher and better designed for carrying dangerous, helpful things. I had the wrist sheath blades on under the windbreaker; they’d saved my life more than once. Guns ran out of ammo, while knives stayed sharp and ready. I could admit to myself that I wasn’t just armed for an active warrant; I was armed for Olaf. I guess I was armed for bear, too, but I wasn’t really worried about them. If I wasn’t armed enough for a quick walk in the woods, then I needed to give up my tough-ass nicknames. I was the Executioner. I was War. I either deserved my rep, or I didn’t. Damn Olaf for making me doubt myself.
I expected the air to smell like evergreens because there were so many more of them here than back home, and there was more of that Christmas tree scent, with the sweeter undertones of cedar, but over it all was an earthier smell. It was somewhere between fresh-turned earth and slow water, like a marsh that I remembered from childhood. I’d always known spring was really here when the frogs started to sing in that little marsh. It had smelled like a pond, but also like land. Even by smell I knew that the water was in transition between pond and soil. What I was smelling now let me know that there was something similar close by, except it was even earthier, like peat. I wondered if I just started walking through the trees and underbrush, I’d find a bog somewhere nearby that would be even less water and more land than that long-ago marsh. Was that marsh even still there, or had some housing developer buried it under fresh construction? I hoped not. I hoped the frogs still went there every spring, and the red-winged blackbirds were still singing and nesting in the cattails there. I wanted Micah here with me so much, but the comfort of him and even the help he could give Bobby weren’t worth the risk.
Micah’s voice was wide-awake this time when he answered the phone. “Hello, my love. Newman just asked us to come help on the case.”
“That’s great, Micah, really.”
“Your tone says it’s not so great. What’s wrong?”
I sighed and let myself lean my back against the thick trunk of the tree beside me. It felt solid and real and good, though with all the weapons and body armor, it wasn’t as cozy as it might have been, but you can’t have it all. I had a moment’s peace by myself out of sight of everyone but the birds and the wind. “I want and need the Coalition’s help with keeping Bobby Marchand in human form and alive so we can find out if he was framed and who framed him, but I don’t want you to come.”
“I’m confused. Do you or don’t you want the Coalition to help you?”
“I do.”
“That usually means me, Anita.”
“You’ve been delegating more out-of-town assignments since Nathaniel requested we both try to cut down.”
“I have, but you’re there and if I come, we’ll be there together. You usually like that.”
“Olaf is here, Micah.”
“Did you call him for backup?”
“No.”
“Is he there officially as a marshal?” His voice held a note of urgency now.
“Yes.”
“You scared me for a minute, Anita.” I could hear the relief and the puzzlement in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Micah, that . . . I didn’t mean to.”
“Okay, apology accepted. If he’s there as Marshal Otto Jeffries, then why are you spooked? Because that’s how you sound.”
“Can’t you just accept that I don’t want you near him?”
“We were near him in Florida at Edward’s wedding, and nothing bad happened.”
“We were all there for the wedding. Then Olaf crashed the party. This time he’s here first, and now that he’s a werelion, I want you to be able to make an informed decision. You’re a grown-up and one of the most competent people I know, so I’ll let you make the final call.”
“I can understand you calling and telling me he was there, because it would change the security I’d bring, but telling me not to come personally, that surprises me.”
I tried to put what I was thinking into words and finally gave up. “I don’t know what to say, other than he’s different this time. He’s more insistent about the relationship stuff. The last macho, super-violent werelion that had me as his first-ever true love was Haven, and you know how that turned out.”
“I agree that werelion society is one of the most violent cultures we have, but Haven lived all his life as a criminal, Anita. He was a mob enforcer starting in his teens and moved up to being a bodyguard for the mob boss and head vampire for Chicago.”
“I know all that,” I said, and sounded pissy even to me. There was no reason to be angry with Micah.
“Olaf has been in some kind of military service, a bounty hunter, and now a U.S. Marshal. He’s done things besides be a criminal. It gives him more life skills than just beating people up or killing them.”
“I’m not sure Olaf was ever in the real military. He may have only been a mercenary or a contractor of some kind, but I take your point.”
“Good,” he said.
“But Haven didn’t have hobbies that scare the fuck out of me.”
“Are you calling being a serial killer a hobby?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“It’s not his hobby, Anita. It’s more his sexual preference.”
“Gee, Micah, that makes it way less creepy.” He laughed at my tone, but I didn’t laugh with him. “I really don’t think this is funny.”
“Anita, honey, what has he done this time that’s different? You seem shaken in a way that’s not like you.”
“Haven almost killed Nathaniel before I had to kill him, and he wasn’t nearly as dangerous as Olaf.”
“Do you really think he’d try to hurt me?”
“I don’t want to find out, and I don’t want to have to worry about your safety while I’m trying to keep myself safe while working on a murder investigation.”
“Has Olaf threatened me?”
“No, none of you. In fact he’s behaving himself pretty well for him.”
“And yet you don’t want me there with him.”
“No, I really don’t. I can’t explain it, and maybe I’m being paranoid, but I love you, and I want us to spend the rest of our lives together. If it’s a choice between Bobby Marchand or you, I’ve already made my choice.”
“I have good people on the Coalition. Thanks to Nathaniel wanting us home more, I found out that I have some great people that had just been waiting for me to delegate more responsibility to them.”
“Then delegate this one . . . please.”
“I’ll miss seeing you, but all right, since you said please.”
There was an edge of a smile in his voice, and I managed to put some of the same tone in my voice as I said, “I’ll miss you, too, and thanks for listening to me.”
“Listening to each other is part of being a couple,” he said.
I laughed then. “If only more people understood that.”
“It only matters that we understand it.”
“True,” I said.
I was smiling, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Something was wrong. I couldn’t have said what, but the hairs on the back of my neck were up. The woods had gone quiet as if everything was hiding. I spoke so low that if Micah had been vanilla human, he wouldn’t have heard. “Gotta go, love.” I pressed the button to disconnect without waiting for a response.
I stood there in the silent woods, fighting not to tense up, but to force myself to relax against the tree, into the bushes beside it. Tension catches the attention of a predator, and I knew that was what I was sensing. It wasn’t vampire or beast powers; it was the same sense I’d had years ago in the woods with my dad when there’d been a cougar. They weren’t supposed to be in the Midwest, but every once in a while one of them would wander through. You can’t hide from wild animals; they have better senses than you do. So make noise and let them know they can’t sneak up on you. Most ambush predators give up when they realize their element of surprise is lost.
“I know you’re there, Olaf,” I called out.
“You did not hear me,” he said from the cover of the woods so close to me that I jumped. I couldn’t help it.
“You didn’t see me.” He sounded puzzled as he stood and stretched that tall frame upward.
I wanted to ask him if he’d combat-crawled that close to me but didn’t want to admit I hadn’t realized he was within twenty feet of me. My pulse was in my throat like it would choke me. I couldn’t hide it from him, not this close. He’d smell my panic. So I let my fear turn to anger, because I’d always rather be pissed than scared.
“What do you want, Ol . . . Otto?”
“You,” he said.
And suddenly I wasn’t angry or scared. I was just tired of the games. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
He frowned at me. “You were frightened, then angry, and now you smell . . . neutral. How?”
“Even I don’t understand what I’m feeling all the time, so I can’t explain it to you.”
“That makes no sense,” he said.
“Emotions don’t make sense most of the time.”
“It must be terrible to be at the mercy of so much illogic.”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“I know I am supposed to want a full range of emotions like everyone else seems to have, but I don’t.”
“Do you ever wonder what you’re missing?” I asked.
“Doesn’t everyone?”
I nodded. “Most people do, yes.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Ever wonder what it would be like to be less emotional, to be a sociopath?”
“Sometimes. I used to think I already was one until I met enough of you, but it does seem more internally peaceful than what the rest of us are doing.”
“Much more peaceful,” he said, staring at me with the full weight of his attention. “How did you know I was here if you neither heard nor saw me?”
“Maybe I smelled you.”
“I’m upwind, not down-.”
“I sensed you.”
“You didn’t see, hear, or smell me, and I’m too far away for touch or taste. There is nothing left.”
“You’re biform now, Otto. You should know better than to just count five senses.”
He stared at me, and I stared back.
“You have been afraid of me in rooms full of people, and now we are in the woods alone and you are not afraid. There is no logic to that either.”
“Witnesses protect us both, Olaf.”
He frowned at me, and then he smiled. It looked like a real smile, as if he was genuinely happy. “You’re threatening me.”
“Just explaining.”
“Do you believe you could draw, aim, and shoot before I closed the distance between us?”
“I don’t know, but if you run at me, we’ll find out.”
I stood there and let the breath out of my body until I felt quiet inside. It was like white static inside me, empty and peaceful. It was how my head always used to go when I killed. Lately I hadn’t seemed to need it, but as I looked at Olaf in the quiet trees, I didn’t try to hide what was happening inside my head. I figured if anyone would understand, it would be him.
“You continue to surprise me, Adler.”
“Good,” I said, voice low and controlled.
My hand was hanging loose and ready next to the full-frame .45, and then I realized no, my AR-15 was on a tactical sling. All I had to do was move my body for it to spill into my hand. I could aim and start firing with it at my side. It wouldn’t have been as accurate that way, but I was sure I’d at least wound him before I got the rifle snugged to my shoulder. Once it was there, I was sure I could finish him. The plan helped quiet even the static, so I felt calm inside my head, no fear, no anything. I wondered if that was how it was for Olaf most of the time. It seemed like a peaceful way to go through life, empty maybe, but peaceful. Maybe you couldn’t have peace and give a damn.
He stood very still, hands spread wide to show he had nothing in them. “It is not time to answer this question between us, Anita.”
I liked that he used my real name. I hated that fucking nickname, and I hated that I didn’t feel free to tell him so even more. And just like that, the anger was back, and I knew if he rushed me now, I would be a little less quick, a little less focused, which meant it was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
My voice was almost neutral as I said, “Then let’s head back to the sheriff’s station.”
“After you,” he said.
I smiled. “Let’s go together but not too close until we have witnesses again.”
“Agreed,” he said.
We started walking through the trees back toward the road, the police station, and the witnesses who would keep us both from doing something the other one would regret. I wasn’t a sociopath like Olaf, or even one like Edward, but I had my moments, because part of me thought about shooting Olaf where no one could see us. If I lied and said he’d attacked me, I could probably sell it. The fact that I even thought that said just how much I wanted to be free of my Moriarty. Fucking nicknames.